But it is in the Catechism through the relationship between several teachings. Can a person not in a state of grace receive Communion?
Unless the priest knows the person and the state of their soul, there’s nothing really to stop the person from receiving communion. It then becomes a matter between the person and God, and their confessor if they elect to repent of their sins including the one of sacrilege.
Is adultery grave matter?
Yes.
Is divorce and remarriage (while the first marriage is valid) adultery?
Technically, yes. Practically-speaking, it makes no sense to equate the second union of someone who was abandoned, or left because of abuse, with the adultery of someone philandering while still married and living with their spouse. That’s neither just more merciful and the Holy Father has made this distinction.
Is marriage indissoluble?
Technically, a valid sacramental marriage is. But when one looks at the annulment rate in the US and probably here in Canada as well… one wonders if the cynics aren’t right by calling it “divorce, Catholic-style”.
Your post was interesting however in that it seemed to imply that an individual priest could over-rule Canon Law. That would raise the authority of priests to a whole new level.
Not so much overrule as finding someone in grey areas that Canon Law can’t neatly categorize. The matters of excommunication in Canon Law apply for instance, to procuring an abortion. We all agree that it is grave matter and grounds for excommunication. Would you not agree however, that a pregnant teen forced to have an abortion by a violent boyfriend, or by parents worried about the family’s reputation, or because the child was the product of incest and is simply revolted by having to carry it, does not bear the same culpability as a woman having an abortion because it simply “isn’t convenient” to have a baby at this time? If you can nuance this, how can you then not nuance “adultery” in a long-term stable second union, with children, following abandonment or abuse by the first spouse? Thankfully the Holy Father can see the difference.
It’s interesting that the statement in the CCC on masturbation, for instance, is every bit as vague as to what mitigating circumstances may be in that case as it is in the case of adultery for the D & R. I haven’t seen too many people slagging Saint John Paul II over it (as he is the signatory of the CCC). Yet it seems Pope Francis is fair game. Frankly, it disgusts, me, and I see conservatives on this issue every bit as rebellious against the Holy Father as they accuse liberals of being.
I like the middle way: orthodox and obedient. I come from a part of the world that had a highly clericalist and borderline Jansenist local Church. Vatican II finally shook that off. I would not want to go back to it and most Catholics I think share that view. Perhaps that colours my thinking, but so too does my Benedictine background which makes me 100% obedient to the Holy Father. Do I wish he were clearer in his document? Yes. But at the same time I take what was written at face value, and at face value he is expecting a change on how we deal with this issue. Whether that involves communion for the D & R is, I think to me, clear it does in very limited and exceptional cases as demanded by charity and common sense and also for other irregular marriages as well.
People today are broken and need healing, and many want to come back to the Church. They need a path that brings them in, not that scolds them and turns them away.
